Une histoire du cinéma : Denys Arcand

From Festin des morts (Dansereau, 1965) to Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, 1991), Monique Mercure has played an astonishing range of roles, both large and small, with distinctive intensity and character. Launching her career at a time when the profession of film actress was hardly recognized in Quebec, she quietly established her powerful presence. Her friend Claude Jutra cast her in À tout prendre (1963), and Deux femmes en or (Fournier, 1970) would consolidate her popularity. Winning the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her extraordinary performance in J.A. Martin photographe (Beaudin, 1976), she went on to work with the biggest names in Quebec film--Jutra again, Labrecque, Poirier, Pool, Lepage, Aubert--crossing generational and linguistic divides. In La brunante (2007), she reunited with director Fernand Dansereau, reprising the role of Madeleine 40 years after she first played the character in Ça n'est pas le temps des romans.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

One of the overlooked giants of Canadian film and broadcasting, Pierre Juneau played a key role in NFB history and in ensuring the place of the francophones within the agency. He arrived in 1949, having been involved in film clubs through a Catholic youth group. By 1954, at the age of 32, he was Assistant Regional Supervisor and official French Advisor. He was instrumental in the decision to relocate NFB headquarters to Montreal in 1956, a move that played a vital role in the evolution of Quebec cinema. When a fully independent French program was established in 1964, Juneau was appointed its first director. In 1968, he was appointed President of the Bureau of Broadcast Governors, later renamed the CRTC, and in 1982 he became President of the CBC, Canada's public broadcaster. He is remembered as one of Canadian culture's great public servants.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

Monique Fortier was one of the few women to make her way in the male world of the NFB in the 1950s. But make her way she did. Beginning as a secretary, she graduated to editing and in 1963 she became the first francophone woman to direct her own film, À l'heure de la décolonisation. Her NFB colleague Anne Claire Poirier would make her first film the same year. Fortier subsequently returned to editing, quietly labouring at the Steenbeck, shaping films that helped define Direct Cinema.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

Schooled in the creative freedom of Direct Cinema, Jacques Leduc would excel in documentary-inflected drama like On est loin du soleil (1970), composed entirely of long shots, as well as sensitive vérité-style projects like Chroniques de la vie quotidienne (1977–1978), an imaginative series of seven films corresponding to the days of the week. Audacious and endlessly inventive, Leduc explored the terrain between fiction and documentary in films such as Albédo (1982) and Le dernier glacier (1984). His critically acclaimed feature Trois pommes à côté du sommeil (1988) paved the way for further work in fiction film. A gifted cinematographer, he has collaborated with directors like Tahani Rached, Jean Chabot, Paule Baillargeon and Yves Dion. In 1993, he co-founded Casa Obscura, a Montreal-based, artist-run space where he hosts regular film-related events.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

Art lover and cinephile Jacques Giraldeau established Quebec's first film club in 1948, the year of the Refus Global, an anti-establishment manifesto championed by his art-world peers. He got early film training at the NFB alongside comrade-in-arms Michel Brault and then cut loose for a few years to experiment with the 16mm Bolex, the new lightweight alternative to heavy 35mm cameras. He and Brault collaborated on Petites médisances (1953-1954), a series of 39 shorts that foreshadowed Direct Cinema. Returning to the NFB in 1960, he thrived in the creative atmosphere that soon gave birth to French Program. In 1963, Giraldeau co-founded the Cinémathèque québécoise. In a career spanning over 50 years, from La neige a neigé (1951) to L'ombre fragile des choses (2007), he has created an extraordinary body of work, bearing witness to the evolution of Quebec culture.

This short film is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

In the late '50s and early '60s, Jacques Godbout was part of a brilliant young gang who would transform the NFB's French Program. They came from diverse backgrounds and most had no previous film training. For his part, Godbout had just returned from Ethiopia, where he'd been teaching French, when he was hired in 1958. He would soon be collaborating with some of the most inventive artists of his generation: Hubert Aquin, Claude Jutra, Michel Brault, Fernand Dansereau, Gilles Carle and others. Active on many cultural fronts, Godbout launched the magazine Liberté, founded the Mouvement laïque de langue française, and served as the first president of the Union des écrivans du Québec. He would display a spirit of experimentation in both documentary and fiction, and his many credits include YUL 871, Kid Sentiment and Ixe-13, now considered a cult classic.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

The NFB would be Jean-Claude Labrecque's school. Arriving in 1959, the dedicated young cinephile quickly grasped the essentials of cinematography, leaving a bold mark on early Quebec films like Le chat dans le sac (Groulx, 1964) and La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (Carle, 1965). A cinematographer of singular talent, Labrecque went on to direct his own films: 60 cycles (1965) and Jeux de la XXIe Olympiade (1977). Keenly tuned to the evolution of Quebec society, he would capture important cultural events on film in Nuits de la poésie (1970, 1980) and André Mathieu, musicien (1993), and document key historical moments like de Gaulle's "Vive le Québec libre!" and Bernard Landry's 2003 electoral campaign. Prolific and erudite, Labrecque produced a body of work that constitutes a richly detailed and deeply humane record of modern Quebec history.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

Le 41e film de l’ONF à être nommé aux Oscars®

Documentaire plus vrai que nature sur la fabrication des clous. Les bruits naturels rendent saisissantes ces images vivantes de feu et d'eau. Forgé sur l'enclume, coupé mécaniquement ou produit de façon industrielle, on découvrira ce petit objet, universellement utile, à travers les étapes de sa fabrication.

A young Englishman abroad, Michael Spencer was stranded in Canada when World War II began in 1939. He would make Canada his home--and help establish the country's film industry. He arrived at the NFB in 1941, starting as a cameraman and becoming a producer in 1945. While NFB Commissioner John Grierson favoured documentaries, viewing film as an educational tool, Spencer wanted to make dramatic features. He was intent on creating a domestic movie industry, independent from Hollywood, and in 1966, NFB management tasked him with devising a system of public film financing. Receptive to the plan, the federal government created the Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)--precursor of Telefilm--and appointed Spencer as its first Executive Director. He occupied the post from 1968 to 1978, overseeing the production of such films as Les ordres (Brault, 1974) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (Kotcheff, 1974).

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

As a young man, Denys Arcand had his heart set on history. He fell into cinema by happenstance, only to become Quebec's most famous director--a winner several times over at Cannes and recipient of the 2003 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. His beginnings wer auspicious. While making a student film in 1961, Arcand was assigned an extraordinary crew that included Brault, Groulx, Carrière and Gosselin. His new friends found a place for him at the NFB, and the agency became his school. He honed his craft alongside cameraman Bernard Gosselin and watched as Pour la suite du monde took form in a neighbouring editing suite. Inspired by this creative foment, he went on to make a remarkable series of films. Referencing Machavielli, classical tragedy, or biblical scripture, the iconoclastic Arcand challenges and stimulates, exploring contemporary Quebec with fearlessness and humour.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.

Back in 1947, while still making amateur movies with Claude Jutra, could Brault have known that he would mark film history? His defiant experimentalism shook things up at the NFB, and films like Les raquetteurs (1958) would launch an irreversible movement. Alongside US filmmakers such as Richard Leacock, the young Québécois was at the forefront of the Direct Cinema revolution--and his "walking camera" would influence Jean Rouch. He collaborated with Pierre Perrault and the inhabitants of Île-aux-Coudres on the landmark film Pour la suite du monde (1963), a key moment in vérité cinema. Restlessly creative, Brault continued investigating both reality and fiction. His own feature, Les ordres (1974), honoured at Cannes, remains ingrained in Quebec's collective memory, as does his cinematography in legendary films like Mon oncle Antoine and Les bons débarras. It is impossible to imagine Quebec cinema without him. Michel Brault died in 2013 at the age of 85.

This interview is part of Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts.